Four Weeks Later
Roberta flicked through the TV channels with the remote; daytime soapies and infomercials weren’t her thing. She stopped at a news segment. It was probably the most stimulating channel so far, but she wasn’t interested in any news outside her hospital room. She lowered the volume, allowing the noise to drone in the background.
The physio was due to arrive any moment, and a hint of annoyance hovered. Lily and Bob turned up for every physio session. All she wanted was to be left alone. To wallow in her self-pity. Getting into her car and driving away in the state she was in that day had been irresponsible. She was an adult and should’ve known better. She’d never forgive herself for this stupidity and thanked her lucky stars she was the only one who’d suffered injuries.
An induced coma for four days to monitor any possible head injuries. A fractured ankle, a couple of broken ribs and lots of bruises. She was alive, but some days she didn’t think she deserved to be. The reminder of Nate’s last words only served to stab her chest with more self-loathing. His absence was hurting.
“Good morning, Roberta.” Bob entered her room, his usual cheerfulness on full display. She got that he’d gained a daughter he never thought he’d have, but she didn’t share his joy yet.
“Where’s Mum?”
“She’s too busy for her daughter today.”
This was said with a smile, a chuckle and a little fragment of humming.
“That figures,” came her sullen reply.
“Thought you’d feel that way. She’s getting my spare room ready for you. You’re coming to stay with me until you fully recover.”
“Can’t wait,” she added with an eye roll.
“Then, when you’re good to drive again, you can return to Melbourne.”
She twitched when a flash of metal hitting metal reared its ugly head in her mind. She’d have to learn how to drive all over again. The accident had shaken her up more than she cared to admit to anyone. For now, it was easier to be a real bitch. It was the only way she could move past the horror of the accident. The endless possibilities of what could’ve happened constantly bombarded her.
She could talk, move and soon be walking again. Her situation could’ve been so much worse, but she wasn’t at the grateful stage yet. She may also never recover from pushing Nate away. There was never any going back to apologise after Nate and Lily begged her not to drive away upset. She cringed. She deserved nothing less than unhappiness for the rest of her life.
Nothing could buoy her spirits, the same way nothing could dampen the joy radiating from Bob’s demeanour every time he was in the room with her. It was like he’d won the lottery of a happy life since discovering he had a daughter. Her happy vibes were unlikely to pop up any time soon.
A familiar voice came from outside her room, and her heart lurched inside her ribcage. Her brother Daniel arrived two weeks ago. He brought all the noise and banter she’d so desperately missed and entered her room with his usual fanfare of loud general chitchat.
“Look who’s here. Your favourite brother.” Bob stepped forward and patted him on the back like they were long-lost mates.
“Half-brother, remember.” Roberta reminded them both.
Daniel ruffled her bed hair around her pillow before leaning closer to give her his usual brotherly hug. “Thank God for that. I knew I was never as bad as you. You are the worst, Sis. I’m just lucky I got genes from a better father.” He turned towards a smiling Bob. “Sorry, mate, it had to be said. Officially, she’s all yours now. See if you can make something good out of her.”
Bob and Daniel continued to chuckle and joke. Daniel had received the news so good-heartedly, why couldn’t she accept it too? Why was she still so hotheaded and sour about it after all these weeks?
Janelle, the physio, entered a few moments later, crowding the room. “Ah, looks like we have the extra helper here again today. Not sure why.” This was said with a shy, yet bold smile towards Daniel.
It’d been a slow work in progress, but Roberta secretly smiled at what was happening between her physio and brother. The flirting started on the first day Daniel arrived. Recently freed from his last possessive girlfriend, he was free to look again and wasn’t wasting a single minute.
Daniel comically puffed out his chest which almost elicited a smile from Janelle. God, how she loved her brother. Tall, dark and so indecently good-looking, he normally had women hanging off him in minutes. Kudos to Janelle who wasn’t falling for Daniel’s charm as fast as he would like.
“Without my help here yesterday, you would’ve struggled,” an affronted Daniel replied.
Janelle scoffed but moved the only chair in the hospital room. “Here, can you hold this chair straight while I get Roberta down from the bed?”
“Hold a chair down with four legs of its own? Wouldn’t you prefer it if I helped Roberta down from the bed?”
“Oh, I think she can do it on her own now.”
Daniel joked further with the pretty physio. A light blush touched Janelle’s cheek, and Roberta didn’t miss the shrug Bob sent her way at the jokey banter.
Janelle maintained a professional approach, though, as she began the exercises designed to prevent her ankle from freezing up as the fracture healed. Daniel would help later when she did some walking. A moon boot would be fitted next in readiness for her discharge from hospital.
A small part of Roberta appreciated having others around as much as she wouldn’t admit it. She wasn’t a solo person; instead, she always needed a horde of people surrounding her, making lots of noise. She wouldn’t have minded one other person around, and craved those days of just her and Nate alone, but, yeah, she wasn’t letting her mind go there. It had tried countless times over the past weeks but shut it down quick smart.
“Okay, time for the moon boot, Roberta,” Janelle announced after one last massage of her calf muscle.
Yesterday when she’d walked with the moon boot on, the pain wasn’t so bad. The sooner she got the hang of walking, even with the aid of crutches, the better. She wanted to feel the brush of fresh breeze on her skin, the sun glistening and dimpling on a lake’s surface, and the thick cloying smell of moist tropical rainforest. Except she wasn’t going back to Lake Barrine.
Not any time soon.
Her shoulders sagged as she sat down on the edge of the bed, struggling to fit the moon boot and secure it in place. She was mentally drained, and her body language might be confusing Janelle. During the past few weeks as she lay mending in this room, all the whys and what-the-fucks circled her head nonstop. Not a single mention of Nate by anyone. Not by Natasha when she made a mad dash down the winding hill to visit her on a day when the teahouse was closed. Nothing from Sally either who drove down every weekend to spend time with her.
“You should be ready to leave in a couple of days, Roberta.”
Janelle was by her side as she walked unaided down the hospital corridor and outside into the small garden for patients.
Dark, heavy clouds filled the sky that day, perfectly matching her mood. She shrugged at Janelle’s assessment.
“I think she’ll need much more physio work once she’s out, don’t you, Bob?” Daniel casually elbowed Bob as they stood outside waiting for Roberta to enjoy a few more minutes of fresh air.
Janelle smiled politely at the implied suggestion, and Roberta finally managed a chuckle. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. She was beginning to feel sorry for Daniel.
“Hey Janelle, can I request you do my final sessions up on the Tablelands after I’m discharged?” Roberta asked cheekily, hoping to give Daniel and Janelle more time together.
Janelle started to say something, stuttered once and then sighed. “If I don’t agree to at least one coffee with this damn brother of yours, he’s going to be hellish to live with. That won’t be good for my patient’s recovery.”
Janelle’s outburst was so out of character for the prim, proper and professional person she displayed whenever she was with Roberta, and they all burst out laughing.
“I couldn’t have said it better,” Daniel replied, nose pointed in the air and his hands joined behind his back. “Lead the way, Sis; it’s time to get you back to your room.”
Roberta steadily walked back along the corridor, oblivious to what Bob, Daniel and Janelle were chatting about. All she was concentrating on was walking and minimising the pain.
Inside her room again, the television continued to drone on. Another news segment was starting, but something the newsreader was saying snagged her attention. She stopped, frozen halfway to her bed.
Local man Nate Surrey and his band of willing helpers find themselves on the wrong side of the law again as they protest the proposed Liverpool Range Wind Farm located between the townships of Coolah and Cassilis in central-west New South Wales.
He was in New South Wales?
“Nate, can you tell us why you travelled so far from home to be here today?”
“Thank you for giving us some airtime. These renewable companies keep proposing ridiculous projects. We’ve applied enough pressure that they are changing the number of turbines from 267 to 220, but this will still make it one of Australia’s largest wind farms. One of their concessions is that they want to increase the maximum blade height above ground level to 250 metres. They initially proposed a height of 165 metres.”
“What are your concerns here?”
“The risk to flying wildlife will be catastrophic, not to mention the area of natural forest which will need to be destroyed for this number of turbines to be erected. This many turbines will create a maze of windmills that no wildlife will be able to fly past without risk of …”
Roberta remained glued to Nate’s image on the screen, but his words rambled on in the background as she lost the thread of what he was saying.
Bob coughed in the background. “Are you okay, Roberta?”
At least she knew where Nate was. Who was skippering the boat in his absence? His dad? A small knot tightened inside her chest. She missed this lunatic so much, yet—
She shrugged. “What did those morons do this time to get the attention of the media?”
“They’ve been protesting for nearly a week on the steps of the Opera House. They refused to budge from their post until the NSW government listened to their concerns. Finally, yesterday, they agreed to do so.”
“How do you know this? I’ve had this channel on every day and haven’t heard anything.”
“There’s been a bit of stuff on the local social media pages.”
That figured. She’d been avoiding her phone as much as possible.
Janelle gently guided Roberta to the bed when the news segment finished. Once she was sitting on the side, Janelle removed the moon boot and placed it on the spare chair ready for the next day. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Roberta. Well done, today.”
Janelle gave a cheery wave as she left the room with Daniel hot on her tail. Which only left Bob in the room. Father and daughter. Neither had anything to say. Bob darted furtive glances her way while his fingers tapped against his thigh in time like a metronome.
“What?” Roberta blustered, trying to cover her nerves.
Bob stood a little straighter. “Roberta, this entire situation is weird. I know, I get it, but I’m your biological dad, and I care about you. It’s no secret you and Nate had a thing going on, and—”
“Mind your own business.” She cut him off. How could they have a thing going when he hadn’t bothered to visit or ring her once? She stared out the only window in the room, watching parrots land on the branches of the tree outside. Despite being fully air conditioned, she wanted to slide the window across and let in the gusty breeze as the dark, menacing clouds intensified.
Rain was only minutes away, and she wanted to be out in it, not watching it through the glass. Everything about the coming storm matched what was happening inside her. Yes, she sent Nate packing. She deserved his silence.
“I’m sorry.” Roberta swung her attention back to Bob. The same gentle, hulking man she’d been warming to until she learnt he was her biological father. Before something snapped.
Bob walked around her bed and stood beside the window. “I know I’ve come late onto the scene and that Sam was the perfect dad. I’m not trying to take his place, I promise, but I’m willing to start from scratch. I’m new at this too, but I’ll always have your back, Roberta, even if you never accept me.”
Roberta pulled her eyes from the brooding sky and met Bob’s. “Is something happening between you and mum?” There was still anger residing, and she didn’t know how to shift or deal with it. How could her mother move on from Sam so fast?
Bob ploughed a hand roughly through his hair as he walked back to the other side of the bed, shifting the chair closer. He placed the moon boot carefully on the floor but didn’t sit down. With his work-roughened hands, he gripped the back of the chair, the whites of his knuckles showing.
There was the same sadness in his eyes that she was feeling. Seeing their similarities and recognising them at last overwhelmed her. She blinked away the sudden moisture threatening, trying to regain her composure.
“Roberta, life has dealt me the shittiest of hands. People have blamed me for things I never did and I’ve paid a hefty price. Then, one day when life couldn’t possibly get any worse, I’m reunited with a woman I once had feelings for—I’m not going to lie, but that’s the truth—and given a daughter I never thought I’d get the chance to have. If you really detest the sight of me, I’ll back off. I really will. I don’t want to hurt you or Lily, but I care about you both.”
Something unfolded inside Roberta. A loosening of sorts. Faced with Bob’s reality, her selfish anger dissipated, forcing her to see things from another point of view. A thin trickle of moisture dribbled down her cheeks. For once, she couldn’t find her words, and her chin dropped to her chest. Heck, Daniel accepted the situation with Bob and their mother, and he wasn’t even related. Why couldn’t she do the same?
“Can I give you a hug?” Bob asked, stepping around the chair.
She looked up as he stood over her. Looked at him properly. His arms were outstretched, a vulnerability on his face like he was preparing for rejection. Was this how Nate felt when she’d told him to go live his life free of her?
The thin stream of tears intensified, and she attempted to rise from the side of the bed. Bob was there in an instant, holding her steady when she lifted herself, wrapping his arms around her waist. She did likewise, tightening her hold around his middle, racking sobs spilling onto his chest.
This journey to the north was proving to be a real awakening. Nothing was going to plan. Finding herself crying her heart out to her newly found father had her mentally shaking her head. What a road trip! Had she taken the wrong fork in the road at some point? How did she get here?
She was Roberta Mintello. Confident in herself, her life and, most times, the direction it was going. She wasn’t perfect nor clueless, but more importantly, she was a realist. These past weeks turned her self-confidence on its head, making her question many things.
She’d lost one dad, only to be reunited with another. Her core family and its values were changing faster than the weather turned in Melbourne.
Bob continued to pat her back gently like a newborn baby. The old Roberta rarely cried, but this new version of her had exposed a vulnerability that was coming out of hiding. This thought resonated nicely with the state she was in. She might just cry again tomorrow if she wanted to. Nothing like her stubbornness to shine through when she needed it most.
When she broke out of Bob’s embrace with a muffled chuckle, he stepped back, a worried frown digging into his brow.
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ve got this. I really have. It’s just been a little crazy lately, that’s all, and sometimes you have to laugh about it.”
Bob’s smile lit up his face. A smile she recognised as her own. Another similarity. She wrapped her arms around his back again, nestling her face against his chest. She was down to sniffles now. As Bob gently patted her hair, an overwhelming sense of release washed over her. She could do this.
My father.
She was determined to work hard and fully embrace this gift. Treat it like a second chance. Liking the sound of that, she took a moment to breathe in the all-male scent of Bob. Of earth and dirt. Potatoes, as she already knew. Of hard toil and pain. He’d suffered so much for someone not guilty of his crimes. She hoped with time he might forgive her for not accepting him immediately and causing him more heartache. For now, she continued to smile as Bob held her, not wanting to move yet. She enjoyed being surrounded by his strength and security.
Every girl needed their dad.